


Forgiveness

by beelivia



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Daddy Issues, Death, Gen, alcoholic father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 12:19:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17622266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beelivia/pseuds/beelivia
Summary: As Mike’s father lays dying in his deathbed, Mike thinks about being raised under him and wonders if his father deserves forgiveness.





	Forgiveness

There are two halves of Mike arguing about what to do.

One half of him says “fuck it” in a very resolute voice that sounds very much like his husband. He doesn’t owe his father anything, let alone an evening spent trying to make his way to whatever expensive hospital in the upper west side so he can have a tearful goodbye and say things he doesn’t mean and forgive all the things he’s been put through. His childhood was spent on tip-toes around arbitrary rules and baited insults and the smell of drugstore beer. His father had a good reputation, still does, so no one knows quite what Mike and his brother went through. The years of panic and rigidity and stress and fear have destroyed him, even now that he’s spent nearly a decade free of his father’s controlling influence.

The other half reminds him that this is his father. No matter what he’s done, Mike is still William Dodds’ son and there’s a certain responsibility he has to love him and care for him in spite of their past. This is the man that raised him, and made sure he got into the NYPD and eventually became a lieutenant before quitting so he could cut down on the perpetual anxiety tightening his throat. He got far because of what his father did to him, so does he not owe to him something as important as visiting him on his death bead?

Mike is still debating on the taxi ride to the hospital, a wad of crumpled bills clutched tight in his hand to pay the hefty bill when he eventually arrives at his far destination. Suddenly it occurs to him that he might have to pay for the hefty hospital bills his father leaves behind in his final, heavily medicated days. That’s his father, never willing to experience even the slightest discomfort, and dwindling any leftover savings on rich opiates to bury his memories in. In such a haze, he wouldn’t have to consider the damage he’s inflicted over the course of his life.

Staring out the window at the pseudo-dark city streets of the late evening, brightened with neon signs and HD billboards, he thinks about the fact that he hates driving. He can get away with avoiding it most of the time in New York City, especially now that he isn’t a cop, but like so much, it comes back to his father. The ever present fear of being in control, of making decisions for himself, of having any sort of independence. As a child, he never even got to choose what socks he wore to school. Every aspect of himself belonged to his father, more an expensive accessory to advertise at fancy events than a living breathing child afraid to mention he hasn’t eaten in two days.

Every time they pass a bar, he loses himself in memories of his father passed out cold on the couch after one too many beers. Mike always bent down to pick up the sticky bottles and toss them to the recycling because if there’s one thing he’s been taught to avoid above all else. To this day, dusty shelves make his skin crawl and spilled soda has him on his hands and knees with a sponge long after the puddle has been mopped up. He can’t stand anything except the austerity his father demanded of him, even when stumbling down the stairs in a drunken stupor with vomit on his sweat soaked shirt. 

Maybe it’s the drinking that’s killing him. Realistically, Mike knows it’s cancer, but it feels like true just-desserts would be liver failure from the years and years of drowning every thought in the haze of foul booze like in the books on alcoholism Mike used to devour ravenously every lunch period in the school library. He never had friends. It was drilled into him that he could trust no one except for his father, no matter what, and even now it’s hard for him to realize that the real world will allow him connections and love and hope.

He’s suddenly struck with the realization that, although hesitantly invited, his father never showed up to his wedding. Deep down, he’s glad, but it still really hurts to know that no one came to the ceremony for him, because the only person in his life was his now husband. Since then, his circle has expanded, but the pain lingers. Especially when, a few days later, he found himself at his father’s house to collect a few leftover things from his old room and found himself pinned to the wall with sour drunken breath in his face and slurred rage assaulting his ears. That wasn’t fair, and he didn’t deserve it, but there comes the question of if he can hold his father responsible for the things he’s done while drunk. The time Mike spent at SVU says yes, but a deep knot in his chest made of dust bunnies and hope says no. He wants to believe his father is actually a good man, one who loved him, and just needed to be freed from an addict’s prison.

Not that William Dodds ever attempted recovery.

It takes a rather irritated demand of charge from the cabbie for Mike to realize he’s currently stopped outside of the imposing hospital. It feels so large and final, unlike the times he’s been here before for his job. Mostly well-to-do victims come here, so it figures this would be the final resting place of his father. 

Mike pays the fare with a generous tip, the kind his father never left. One of the philosophies of such a man was that tips are for hard workers who go above and beyond, and even then, they should be stingy at best. But from a brief shot of freedom Mike enjoyed in his early twenties as a bartender, he learned the truth behind tips and abysmal wages, and ever since he’s done his best to make sure that no one is wondering if they can afford a ninety nine cent biscuit from the bodega for dinner that night. He’s been there too, while bartending, because he had been kicked out of the house for his refusal to join the force immediately and his hard won admittance of being in love with a man. But he doesn’t want to revisit that memory, not now, when he’s trying to reconcile what he’s been through with the obligation to say goodbye to a dying man high out of his mind on medical grade depressants.

The sting of antiseptic in his nose makes him want to scream when he gets inside. He's never been good with it, really, but right now it feels six times as potent with the weight of what he’s come here to do. Goodbyes are easy because he knows there will always be another hello to complete the pair, but this time, he has to say his final farewells again. He had said them so long ago.

He isn’t sure if he cares to do so again.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr, @lesbiancarisi!


End file.
